National Republican., 1887-05-02

BROOKLYN. May lat the Tabernacle this
morning. the paster, the Rev. T. De Witt Tai
mage, D. D., expounded some of the Proverbs
Of Solomon. The congregation sang with
magnificent effect the hymn beginning
Arm of the Lord, awake! awake!
Put on thy strength, the nations shake.
DR.. Talmage took for his text Acts xix, 10
"NIany of them also which used curious arts
brought their books together, and burned them
before all men; and they counted the price of
them, and found 1t fifty thousand pieces of
SILVER"
Paul had been stirring up Ephesus with
some lively sermons about the sins Of that
place. Among the more important results
was the fact that the citizens brought out
their bad books, and in public place made O
bonfire OF them. see the people coming out
with their arms full of Epheslan literature, and
tossing it into the flames. l hear an economist
Here are $500 worth of books-do you propose
10 burn them all up? Ifyou don't want to
.eesOdy .eaa aSm else TssS he ss sas sand Ss %
people, 'if these books are not good for us,
they are not good for anybody else, and we
turned to @ ashes f They have d dons sI US ea world
harm" Hear the hamescrackle aud roar!
my one o. he SnnIs 81 Of tas
books and newspapers, We have enough fuel
to make blaze two hundred feet high. Many
throw into the Blaze tfs their vent entire % stock S Of
goods. Bring forth the insufierable trash and
put IT into the fire, and let 1t be known. In the
are going to rid your homes OF the overtop.
ping and underlying curse of profigate li.era-
The printing press is the mightiest agency
on earth for good and for evil. The minister
ofthe Gospel, standin ing In a pulpit, has a re-
sponsible position, but do not think it is as
publisher. At what distant point of time, at
what far out cycle of eternity, will cease the
influence of a Henry j. Raymond. or II
Horace Greeley, or James Gordon Bennett, or
Watson Webb, or an Erastus Brooks. or a
Thomas Kinsella? Take the simple statistic
that our New York deilies now have a circu.
the fact that three OF our weekly periodicals
have an aggregate circulation of about one
million, and then cipher, IL you can, how far
up, and how far down, and how far out reach
the influences of the American printing press
Great God What is to DO the issue OF all this ?
believe the Lord intends the printing press
TO be tho chief means for the worlds rescue
and evangelizatlon, and think that the great
last batile OF the world will not be fou yht
with hwords and guns. but with types
aud presses-a purtted aud Gospel literature
lrlumphlng over, trampling down, and crush.
Ing out forever that which Is depraved. The
only way to overcome unclean literature I, by
May God speed the cylinders of an honest iu-
teiligent, aggressive, Christian printing press.
nave 10 tell YOU this morning that the
greatest blessing that ever came to this nation
IL mat OF an elevated literature, and the
greatest scourge has been that of unolean
literature. This last has its victims In all Ol-
cnpatons and departments. IL has helped to
~ insane asylums and penitentiaries and
a!smshouses, and dens of shame. The bodies
OF this infection lie In the hospitals aud in the
grave, while their souls are being tossed over
into a lost eternity. an avalanche of horror
6nd despair
The London plague was nothing to IL. That
counted its victims by thousands, but this
modern pest has already shoveled It's millions
into the charnel house of the morally de ld.
The longest rail-train tina, ever ran over the
Erie or Hudson tracks was not long enolgh or
large enough TO carry the beastliness and the
purefaction which have been gathered mn in
bad books aud newspapers Of this land in the
last twenty years,
Now, II is amid such clrcumst,nee, that
put this morning Il question OF overmlsterlnE Z
Importance to you and your families. Whps
backs ana newspapers shall wo Teldi You see
group them together. newspaper Is only Il
book In swiiter and mora pjrlable shape,
and the same rules which win apply to bjoS
reading win apply p n5wsplpir .rea ills,
What shall we read? Shall our minds be III
receptacle OF everything that m author has u
mind 10 writer Shall there be no distinction
between the tree OF life and the treo of death!
Shall we stoop down aud drink out of the
trough which the WiGkedness Of men has lllel